Sir Michael John Berridge (22 October 1938 – 13 February 2020) was a British physiologist and biochemist. Born and raised in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kno ...

(now Zimbabwe), he was best known for his work on cellular transmembrane signalling, in particular the discovery that

inositol trisphosphate Inositol trisphosphate or inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate abbreviated InsP3 or Ins3P or IP3 is an inositol phosphate signaling molecule. It is made by hydrolysis of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2), a phospholipid that is located in the p ...

acts as a second messenger, linking events at the plasma membrane with the release of Ca²⁺ within the cell.Lagnado J. New honorary members for the Biochemical Society. ''The Biochemist'' (December 2004)
(accessed 7 January 2009) , he was the Emeritus Babraham Fellow in the Signalling Programme Department of the

Babraham Institute The Babraham Institute is a life sciences research institution and a partner organisation of the University of Cambridge. The Babraham Institute is based on the Babraham Research Campus, partly occupying a former manor house, but also labora ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, and honorary professor of cell signalling at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

Education

Born in Gatooma in

, Berridge gained a BSc in

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

and chemistry at the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

(1960), where his interest in

insect physiology Insect physiology includes the physiology and biochemistry of insect organ systems. Although diverse, insects are quite similar in overall design, internally and externally. The insect is made up of three main body regions (tagmata), the head, thor ...

was stimulated by Eina Bursell. He came to the UK to study with insect physiologist Sir Vincent Wigglesworth at the Department of Zoology of the

, gaining his PhD on the topic of

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

excretion Excretion is a process in which metabolic waste is eliminated from an organism. In vertebrates this is primarily carried out by the lungs, kidneys, and skin. This is in contrast with secretion, where the substance may have specific tasks after ...

in the African cotton stainer (''Dysdercus fasciatus'') in 1965.

Career and research

Berridge moved to the USA for his early

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

positions, which were in the Department of Biology of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

, with Dietrich Bodenstein (1965–66); in the Developmental Biology Center of Case Western Reserve University,

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, with Michael Locke (1966–67); and in the Department of Biology of Case Western Reserve University with Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen (1967–69). He returned to

in 1969 to become senior and later principal scientific officer of the Agricultural and Food Research Council Unit of Invertebrate Chemistry and Physiology at the Department of Zoology of the University of Cambridge. He served as senior principal scientific officer of the Unit of Insect Neurophysiology and Pharmacology from 1978 until 1990. He then joined the Laboratory of Molecular Signalling of the

as deputy chief scientist, becoming head of that laboratory in 1994, a position he held until his retirement in 2004, when he was appointed the first Emeritus Babraham Fellow. In 1994, he was appointed honorary professor of cell signalling at the University of Cambridge. He was a fellow of Trinity College.

Publications

* * *

Awards and honours

Berridge was awarded the

William Bate Hardy Prize The William Bate Hardy Prize is awarded by the Cambridge Philosophical Society. It is awarded once in three years “for the best original memoir, investigation or discovery by a member of the University of Cambridge in connection with Biological ...

in 1987, the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 1989 and the Royal Medal of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1991. He received the

Wolf Prize in Medicine The Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The ...

of 1994/5, jointly with Yasutomi Nishizuka, and the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine in 2005. His many other awards include the Feldberg Prize (1984), King Faisal International Prize for Science (1986),

Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine Established in 1986, the Louis-Jeantet Prizes are funded by the ''Fondation Louis-Jeantet'' and awarded each year to experienced researchers who have distinguished themselves in the field of biomedical research in one of the member states of t ...

(1986),

Gairdner Foundation International Award The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a ...

(1988), Ciba-Drew Award in biomedical research (1991), Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics (1994), the

Massry Prize The Massry Prize was established in 1996, and until 2009 was administered by the Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation. The Prize, of $40,000 and the Massry Lectureship, is bestowed upon scientists who have made substantial recent contributions in ...

from the Keck School of Medicine,

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

in 1996, and the Ernst Schering Prize (1999). He was knighted for services to science in the

1998 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1998 for the United Kingdom, Barbados, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Christopher and Nevis were announced on 30 December 1 ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1984 and became one of the founding members of the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

in 1998. In 1991, he was elected Foreign Member of the Belgian Académie royale de Médecine de Belgique. In 1999, he was elected a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2007. He was a member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

and the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

. He was also an honorary fellow of the Society of Biology,

Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. Structure It currently has around 7000 members, two-thirds in the UK. It is affiliated with th ...

,Biochemical Society: Honorary Fellows
(accessed 7 January 2009)

Society for Experimental Biology The Society for Experimental Biology is a learned society for animal, cell and plant biologists. It was founded in 1923 at Birkbeck College to "promote the art and science of experimental biology in all its branches". It aims to demonstrate the i ...

, Japanese Biochemical Society and the American Physiological Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berridge, Michael John 1938 births 2020 deaths Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of London Alumni of University of London Worldwide British biochemists British physiologists Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Knights Bachelor Massry Prize recipients People from Kadoma, Zimbabwe Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Rhodesian emigrants to the United Kingdom Rhodesian people of British descent Royal Medal winners University of Zimbabwe alumni White Rhodesian people Winners of the Heineken Prize Wolf Prize in Medicine laureates